This invention relates to pallets, cots and the like and more particularly, to a nestable cot for use in a children's day care facility.
Many child care or childrens' day care facilities have a routine of activities for the children. For young children, particularly preschoolers, this routine often includes one or more scheduled rest periods. One such period may be scheduled in the morning, for example, and another such period in the afternoon. During this time, the children lie down to rest and to nap. In some facilities, mattresses, rest mats, or pallets are provided for the children to lie on. It is also common to provide cots. Cots have an advantage over rest mats in that they are raised off the floor. But, unlike rest mats, they are not readily rolled up or conveniently stored in place for other activities. Storage space must he provided for them when they are not in use. Since space in day or child care facilities is usually at a premium, it is important that the cots require as little storage space as possible.
There is available upon the market a nestable cot wherein it includes tubing having connectors provided at its corners, but the connectors are fabricated of multiple components, with a series of fastening means provided within each tube insert, and requires the usage of various tools to provide initially for the assembly of the connector, and then its installation to the tubing forming the cot structure. This product is manufactured and marketed by a company named Dandelion Co., of Oregon.
The current type of folding cot available for usage is either the old Army style wooden collapsible cot, but the concern with usage of that type of cot is that when folded, it may have a tendency to pinch the fingers, particularly of young children, when manipulating the same. In addition, there is the bent tubing type of cot, wherein the legs fold outwardly, generally at an angle, and thereby extend beyond the perimeter of the rest surface itself. Hence, this type of a cot is difficult to stack, as when stored.
Most cots are collapsible or can be disassembled. If disassembled after each use, they can be put away without too much trouble and the children using them will have ample activity room available. However, disassembling and reassembling cots once or twice a day is a time consuming activity and chore. It would be easier if the cots were left in their assembled state This can be done if the cots can he safely and interlockingly stacked. Stackable rest mats and cots are known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,400,671 to Erismann, 2,916,239 to Stopps, and 2,678,787 to Averill. These patents address material handling pallets, and as such, are not compatible with cots such as those used by children. Other cot stacking arrangements are available. One of these, for example, replaces the normal corner connector structure of a cot with a complicated multi-component corner connector structure. To install one on each of the four corners of a cot is not only time consuming, but requires the use of various hand tools. And, if parts are lost or misplaced, the cots cannot be stacked or only stacked with difficulty. What is needed is a simple arrangement for providing stacking of fully assembled cots. The arrangement should be easy to install without the need of tools, or through usage of a single simple tool, such as a screwdriver, to facilitate assembly, when necessary, and provide easy stackability so that cots can be quickly set-out at the beginning of a rest period and put-away when the rest period is over.